ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, December 23, 1995 TAG: 9512250002
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: ADRIANNE BEE STAFF WRITER
There's a story in each special ball and bell you hang, every year, on your tree. A memory of the time your brother broke Santa's sleigh, or your daughter turned pasta and tinfoil into angels.
A few weeks ago, we asked you to share memories of your most precious ornaments. Here they are. Just in time for Christmas:
The first year Lori Hughes and her husband were married, they were broke, she remembers "with no ornaments and no money to buy them." Hughes was a senior in college at Appalachian State in Boone, N.C., working temp jobs part-time; her husband was a grad student and teaching assistant. Her uncles, who owned a tree farm, gave her a tree. Her parents gave her a tree stand, some lights and the old ornaments they no longer used.
"You know the kind - the ones that remain in the box because no one wants to hang the ugly, tacky things on the tree."
After looking through the donations, Hughes, who now lives in Christiansburg, decided she would have "a modest tree." She plugged the lights into the wall to see if any bulbs needed replacing. They began smoking, and went straight to the trash.
Some angels were salvaged from the box of ornaments, and Hughes put those on the tree first. The silver balls were chipped, so Hughes went to work with some bleach to take off the paint and then hung the clear balls with lace off an old slip.
"When I added these to my tree, it truly looked festive, not tacky," Hughes said. "While we still didn't have much money for Christmas presents, at least we had a nice tree and at least I hadn't burned down the apartments with the faulty lights.
The baubles are still Hughes' favorites, despite the new ornaments that have joined the tree over the years. "They remind me of the year I had very little money, but I had a husband, a new apartment and parents anxious to unload their ugly ornaments."
Stacey Mills' special Christmas ornament - two snowmen surrounded by poly-fil snow - reminds her of someone she loved very much. "My fiance made this ornament the year we got engaged ... on Christmas day," Mills said.
Mills remembers that difficult year when she was a senior in high school. Her parents separated and, according to Mills, her father did not respond very well to the situation. Mills says she spent her senior year trying to take care of her father and his depression.
"The days when I felt like I couldn't take it anymore, my fiance was there to help me out in any way," Mills said. "We spent four wonderful years together but then we broke up ... and we never got married."
The snowmen on her tree make her think of him and "how much I am grateful to him in my time of need," Mills said. "And how I wish that we had given our love a second chance when we had the opportunity. I will never forget what he did for me."
The first gift opened every year at Christmas in Gloria Benson's Blacksburg home is an angel ornament. Her four children take turns opening it.
"It is very special because it is in memory of our daughter, Sarah, who passed away in January of 1991," Benson says. "This is the fifth Christmas without her. ... As we open the ornament we take a moment to remember her and her life which was a very special blessing. When I look at the ornaments I am reminded that she is happy in heaven with God and his angels."
When the New River flooded the Duncans' Newport home in January 1995, "we lost everything we had," Lethia Duncan said. "But fortunately our family's ornaments were saved. We treasure them."
Jackie Freeman's favorite ornament is a small stork given to her by her obstetrician, Gunter Loderstedt.
After two years of trying to get pregnant and still no baby, Freeman made an appointment to discuss some options with Loderstedt, who is also a family friend.
In the meantime, the Loderstedts and the Freemans traveled together to an Octoberfest in Greensboro, N.C. On the way, Jackie Freeman said she was feeling tired. "I didn't realize that I had one of the early symptoms of pregnancy," she said.
"At the Octoberfest, Gunter and Jean brought us the small carved stork and presented it with best wishes," Freeman said. "This was to be the first of many carved German ornaments that John and I have collected on our trips to Germany."
The "baby" is now 21 years old and was followed by another.
"Each year when I get out the ornaments, I remember how much we hoped for that baby and how we hung that little stork on our tree," Freeman said. "Most of my gifts that year were maternity clothes."
"It's just a tiny sled with Santa drawn by eight reindeer," said Catherine Dobyns Nester of Floyd County. And when she thinks of it, she remembers Little Joe.
Joe, Nester's only brother, was born with Down syndrome.
"It was during the Depression years when my father gave us each a quarter to go to Woolworth's to shop," Nester said. "I bought a bottle of Blue Waltz perfume and Little Joe selected Santa." Her brother displayed the ornament every year.
"If you ever want to see it, visit Jacksonville Cemetery on Christmas Eve," Nester said. "You will find it on his grave."
"19 years ago when our oldest child was 2 years old, we started a family tradition of making a new ornament every Christmas," said Joyce Hendricks of Blacksburg. "We gather as a family and create. We all make the same basic ornament but there are always individual differences." Each Hendricks child has a special ornament box in which to save ornaments from one year to the next. The children will receive that box for Christmas the first year they are married.
"Every year we decorate the tree with ornaments of years past and the new one for that year," Hendricks said. "We have a lot of fun remembering when we made each ornament. We always look forward to the time together."
In May, Hendricks' oldest daughter was married and this year "we presented her with her box of 19 ornaments to use on her own tree," Hendricks said. "My husband and I will always have the treasure of Christmas memories with our children as long as we have these special ornaments to hang on our tree."
"Our special holiday ornament is a smiling, barefooted, little girl angel holding a candle," said Maxine Aust of Pulaski. She cut the angel from a 1944 issue of a woman's magazine and pasted it on cardboard to make an ornament for her daughter's second year Christmas tree. "It has been the very first item to be put on our Christmas tree for 51 years," Aust said. "The little angel has been the real beginning of our Christmas over the years."
When Mary Jarvis' six grandchildren come to visit her in Peterstown, W.Va., they look for their special ornaments on the Christmas tree. Jarvis painted the ornaments, which are in the shape of bells and trees and have snapshots of each grandchild whose ages range from 3 to 21 years old.
Marie Morgan says her felt wreath, Christmas tree and snowman are "very, very special ... because my daughter made them at the age of 9; she died at the age of 17."
At Christmas time every year, Morgan hangs the ornaments on her tree and is reminded of her daughter's "dear little hands making and holding them."
"She has gone home to be with the Lord," Morgan says. "And she will never be forgotten."
LENGTH: Long : 138 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: GENE DALTON/Staff. Lori Hughes displays one of her clearby CNBornaments. She dresses them up by removing the metal hangers and
replacing them with lace. color.